Sunday, July 14, 2024

Ironic? You bet!

One of the folx down the road is a tRUMP supporter. In fact, there’s many of them in the county in which we live. The one I’m writing about however, has a sign in from of his house that claims: “Gun owners for Trump!,” or words to that effect. Maybe I’ll try to take a picture the next time I drive past if the sign is still there. Since the candidate was grazed by a bullet yesterday, and several folx are dead and others critically wounded according to the news, I wonder if the Trumpster MAGAt has a sense of irony. Even more, I wonder if the candidate does, but suspect not.

photo of a burned brush pile
will we be the phoenix or the ash pile of democracy?
Photo by J. Harrington

Those of you who read this with any regularity have probably noticed I’ve ben on a kick lately, citing old sayings and quotations. The current opportunity offers too much to pass by. Heres a few that come to mind:

  • Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas
  • Known by the company you keep
  • Give as good as you get (or vice versa)
  • What goes around, comes around (or vice versa)
  • and the ever infamous Live by the sword, ...

If I left out any you think belong on the list, please note them in the comments.

Last nights thunderstorms awakened my dog and made her quite anxious, so of course she looked to me for reassurance at about 12:45 am. I gave here a couple anxiety calming treats and had her lie down while I rubbed under her chin. (She doesn’t like me to pet the top of her head.) After a while, the rain, lightning and thunder faded away and SiSi and I faded back to sleep. I figure SiSi’s about as likely to grow out of thunderstorm anxiety as most politicians are likely to grow into authenticity, integrity and transparency. Both of which are more likely to occur than for me to get to vote for the candidate [AOC] I’d really like to see as POTUS so I’ll just try to make the most of the world I’ve got to live in. Good luck to US all. We’ll need it if we continue to act as though we’ll settle any more by a next civil war than we did by the last one.


America


Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud   
Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison

Whose walls are made of RadioShacks and Burger Kings, and MTV episodes   
Where you can’t tell the show from the commercials,

And as I consider how to express how full of shit I think he is,   
He says that even when he’s driving to the mall in his Isuzu

Trooper with a gang of his friends, letting rap music pour over them   
Like a boiling Jacuzzi full of ballpeen hammers, even then he feels

Buried alive, captured and suffocated in the folds   
Of the thick satin quilt of America

And I wonder if this is a legitimate category of pain,   
or whether he is just spin doctoring a better grade,

And then I remember that when I stabbed my father in the dream last night,   
It was not blood but money

That gushed out of him, bright green hundred-dollar bills   
Spilling from his wounds, and—this is the weird part—,

He gasped “Thank god—those Ben Franklins were   
Clogging up my heart—

And so I perish happily,
Freed from that which kept me from my liberty”—

Which was when I knew it was a dream, since my dad   
Would never speak in rhymed couplets,

And I look at the student with his acne and cell phone and phony ghetto clothes
And I think, “I am asleep in America too,

And I don’t know how to wake myself either,”
And I remember what Marx said near the end of his life:

“I was listening to the cries of the past,
When I should have been listening to the cries of the future.”

But how could he have imagined 100 channels of 24-hour cable
Or what kind of nightmare it might be

When each day you watch rivers of bright merchandise run past you
And you are floating in your pleasure boat upon this river

Even while others are drowning underneath you
And you see their faces twisting in the surface of the waters

And yet it seems to be your own hand
Which turns the volume higher?


********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

No comments:

Post a Comment